There’s still time to volunteer, if you’re willing to take crap from anyone.
Doctors are actively recruiting volunteers for a trial of fecal transplant capsules, or “crapsules.”
They’re basically what they sound like: capsules containing freeze-dried feces from a donor. More importantly, they also contain microorganisms that people need for a healthy digestive system.
The researchers conducting this study want to know if fecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT, can help people living with liver cirrhosis.
“The ‘crapsules,’ which have none of the taste or smell as the name suggests, may offer new hope for patients with cirrhosis who are out of treatment options,” researcher Debbie Shawcross of King’s College London told the Daily Mail.
Though it’s unconventional, FMT isn’t exactly new — it’s been used in humans since 1958, and in animals for about 100 years.
In 2022, the Food and Drug Administration approved FMT to treat potentially deadly infections of Clostridium difficile (C. diff), which causes fever, diarrhea and cramping.
C. diff infections are “a death sentence to liver patients,” Dr. Lindsey Edwards of King’s College London, who is a co-leader of the study, told the BBC.
The therapy has also been investigated for a range of disorders, including ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease — it’s even been tried as an “anti-aging” treatment.
The latest research effort is an attempt to see if FMT can prevent the infections that often accompany cirrhosis.
Cirrhosis of the liver is a life-threatening ailment in which healthy liver tissue is replaced with scar tissue, which prevents the liver from working properly and leaves people at high risk of a C. diff infection.
Cirrhosis is the seventh leading cause of death in the US among adults 25 to 64 years of age, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Researchers are building upon their success from an earlier FMT trial named PROFIT, which overcame some initial hesitation from participants.
“You can imagine there could be some potentially awful things that people might have in their mind,” said Shawcross. “But everybody was very on board with it, and it generally made people feel a lot better.
“We showed it was safe and feasible to do and that actually, that by changing the gut microbiome in patients with liver disease, we could potentially change the outlook and the outcomes for these patients,” she added.
However, the participants in that trial stated they would prefer to take tablets rather than have a rectal endoscopy.
The current study will last for two years, and the participants — all of whom have cirrhosis — will be randomly assigned to have the FMT capsules or a placebo.
The study will look at how many people in each of the two groups get an infection, and if FMT helped to prevent infection or restore the gut microbiome to healthy levels.